


Thin Walls

by ishtarelisheba



Series: The Tie That Binds 'verse [2]
Category: Once Upon a Time (TV)
Genre: F/M, Overhearing Sex
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-06-02
Updated: 2019-06-02
Packaged: 2020-04-05 23:08:37
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 604
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19050358
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ishtarelisheba/pseuds/ishtarelisheba
Summary: Somewhat to his annoyance, August overhears Ian and Belle in her apartment. A quick one-shot in response to a couple of prompts; takes place during chapter 11 of TTTB.





	Thin Walls

**Author's Note:**

> [Prompts - _betweenpaperpages said: Augusts' reaction to his neighbor Belle's nightly activity. If only those walls were a bit more sound proof...  
>  kelyon said: TTTB August, just wondering, what made you think Bell was single? Did you not notice any… company she might have had while you’ve been neighbors? Also, how thick are the walls in your apartment? And do you wear headphones a lot or have a white noise machine? Just curious!_]

August set his coffee cup on the dining table next to his typewriter, taking the saucer holding a piece of apple pie off the top. Everything was reasonably quiet. After a day of struggling with commas and online thesauruses, he was ready to sit down and get some real work done.

Words waited right at the surface of his brain as he hovered his hands over the keys. He had a few introductory paragraphs finished. It was just about time to lay down a little description of his heroine.

 _‘She stepped out of the shower,’_ he wrote, nodding and smiling to himself as he saw it in his mind’s eye, _‘and stopped in front of the mirror over the sink to give herself an appraising look.’_

Something that sounded a lot like a scream came from across the hallway. August’s hands paused mid-keystroke. He looked back to his sheet of paper, re-reading. It would help to establish that the character was blonde. A real one. As he contemplated which trim shape she would more likely go for, there was another scream.

They didn’t sound like _bad_ screams, he decided. There was an… interesting quality to them that had him listening for more. He was a bit let down by the quiet that followed, though.

It was just as well. He had a manuscript to get started. Blonde, green eyes, big and perky rack, he reminded himself. _‘Wiping the steam from the mirror, she watched as droplets of water dripped similarly down the glass and the firm globes of her breasts.’_

A big thump rattled through to his apartment. He raised an eyebrow at the ripples it caused across the surface of his coffee. That was new. His interest piqued further. Before he could think too hard about the thump, there came a series of smaller muffled yelps, and his imagination began trying to piece the sounds together into some sort of narrative about what might be going on. A pair of shouts, one after the other, made it across the hall. He abandoned all pretense of trying to write and just listened eagerly for more.

There was nothing. August deflated with disappointment. He _should_ be writing, anyway. Looking at the paragraph of description he’d written of the heroine, he was suddenly dissatisfied with the flow of it. Well, he could always rework it into something else. A ghost story, maybe. Horror. That would be something to try his hand at. He pulled the paper from his typewriter and started looking at the pronouns, marking them in red and making notes to switch over to an unseen observer watching his character as she got out of the shower. Yeah, that was better. He wound another piece of paper onto the cylinder.

A cry of, “Yes, please!” crossed the hallway quite clearly, the suddenness of it causing him to strike a half dozen keys at once. The old typewriter jammed. He scowled down at it.

That was Belle, without question. He listened closely as he picked the crossed typebars apart. A regular _bang, bang, bang_ of something against a wall across the way actually managed to jar his coffee cup. The rhythm ended with another scream, and he was left in silence once more.

He’d hoped for a while there that his hot neighbor was unattached. Or at least up for some occasional something. The guy she brought home wasn’t a great sign, he had to admit. The flowers over the past week had gotten the message across, but he had a feeling it had just been demonstrated rather spectacularly for him that she was taken.


End file.
